


A Magic Trick

by misha_collins_butt



Series: I Knew I Loved You [25]
Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bath Sex, Drug Abuse, First Kiss, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self Harm, Spoilers, physical assault, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:54:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22889536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misha_collins_butt/pseuds/misha_collins_butt
Summary: ~John doesn't want to talk about it. Doesn't know why she keeps bringing it up. He's told her, he doesn't want her to bring it up. He wants every last bloody piece of that buried for the rest of his life. But, as life almost usually does, nothing works in John's favour.~
Relationships: Johnlock, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: I Knew I Loved You [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/215984
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	A Magic Trick

It's raining.

"The stuff that you wanted to say, but didn't...say it now."

_ 'I know I said to you that the call was my note. But then, I'm a liar, aren't I? When we met, they told you to stay away from me. Maybe you should have listened. Maybe it's better that you didn't. There were a lot of things I expected from you, including that you'd be an easy companion. In a way, I even expected this. Me. Moriarty. All of it. The one thing I did not count on, the one thing I did not expect, was falling in love with you. Even less did I expect for you to fall in love with me. No one falls in love with me. No one is that much of an idiot, not even you. Please believe me when I tell you I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I love you, John. Don't you dare let this kill you. Don't let it kill you like it killed me. Keep living. Do it for me, if you must, or even for Mrs. Hudson. It doesn't matter, just do it. Do it because I love you and because I told you to. And visit 221B for me, would you? At least once. _

_ ~SH' _

John's lips part on a choked inhale.

"No, I-I won't. I can't."

\----

And then he's there.

In the flat, when John visits, like the note told him to. Sitting there in his chair, staring off into space, ten months after he fell.

It makes John furious. Makes John punch him.

"One word," John hisses. "One word, Sherlock, that's all I would've needed."

When he replies, all he says is, "Well, it was a possibility."

"Shut up."

"Though, I'd predicted a much less accurate beating."

"What the bloody hell are you going on about?!"

"Mrs. Hudson," he says, "screamed. I figured you'd be more receptive."

John nods aggressively, Arctic eyes. "Right. Mm. Okay." Turns and leaves.

\----

When Mary asks that night, John tells her. She asks to meet him. John tells her he doesn't care. She knows he does.

\----

On his Wednesday date with Mary, John arrives two minutes late, and turquoise eyes meet his. They're seated 'round the table corner from Mary's dark green-grey ones, which float sparklingly above her smile.

The tremour in John's hand comes back in full force, but he grips the table's edge as he lowers himself into the chair across from Mary.

"What is this?" John asks calmly.

Sherlock looks down into his lap. Almost seems ashamed. Gets up and starts putting his coat on.

"Hold on, now," Mary catches his wrist. "What did I say?"

"Cigarette," he responds simply and Mary releases him, lips pressed into a disapproving line. "Promise."

She seems reluctant, but appeased, and watches him go. Looks back to John and his expectant brows.

"Why?" John is a millimetre from losing it and he's not sure if he can control himself, even  _ with _ an explanation.

"I knew you wouldn't talk to him on your own."

John squeezes his eyes shut, bows his head before turning it and nodding, pushing his tongue against the insides of his closed lips. 

"I don't--" John surveys the ceiling. "You know...that I can't--"

"I know that you love him."

He snaps his head down to gape at her, but doesn't ask. Only lets his eyes roll across the floor, gulping.

"Don't," he whispers once more.

She stares at him, wet along the brims of her lashes, trying to get him to look at her.

Then, smiling a bit, she whispers back, "I like him."

John says nothing.

\----

John still doesn't make an effort to contact him. Still too angry. Livid, really.

As he has the right to be.

Mary gives up after month five. 

But John hopes Sherlock hasn't. And it stings.

\----

Then, they almost die in that train carriage.

At least, Sherlock pretends, and it makes John realise something. 

That, no matter how pissed he is, he's still willing to die for and with Sherlock Holmes, whatever the cost or place or reason. And he'd almost admitted it just then, when he'd thought they were about to meet their maker. He almost just said the things he wasn't supposed to say, the things he'd wanted to say before, the things, he realises, he still wants to say now.

Instead, stomps across the carriage, fists his hand in Sherlock's collar, and yanks him down, meeting in a crash of lips and boiling rage and years overdrawn by timid glances, waltzing steps.

Sherlock kisses back after a confused moment and a muffled yelp, but he kisses back nonetheless, releasing a soft noise when John jams his mouth open with his tongue. 

It lasts only seconds before the booted foot-falls of the bomb squad are closing in and John has to pull back. 

As the squad filters into the car, Sherlock gawks down at John, all of the smugness of his earlier charades disappeared with his usually inscrutable composure. John stares back for a second as the squad swarms around them, then he turns and hops off the train.

\----

As the first responders take stock of John's state of being, Sherlock, seated next to him on the tail of the ambulance, is lost in one of his eerily silent reveries. 

When he does speak, all he says is, "I'm sorry."

John isn't sure what for.

\----

The next time he'll even mention Sherlock is months later, after Mary suggests he be John's best man.

John doesn't know why she'd suggest that. She knows about the kiss. He'd told her that same night about how it happened. She'd just smiled and held his hand gingerly, like she knew he was falling apart. And she's played along so well with John's little game, this fun thing where he avoids the topic of Sherlock at all costs. She's been very good at it, too.

So why she suggests Sherlock for best man is an enigma.

He asks Sherlock anyway, thanks to quite a bit of prodding from Mary, herself. 

As expected, Sherlock is stunned by the inquiry. Because he knows as well as John does that it's a bad idea. That all of it is a bad idea and, you know what? Screw the whole damn wedding, he's not doing this. He'll convince Mary to get officiated at local Parliament so that they don't have to go through with any sort of ceremony that involves anything to do with other people, most of all Sherlock.

But then, Sherlock agrees, as if asking wasn't bad enough already, and John suspects Mary has something to do with it, considering the detective doesn't give John an answer until three days later, after John catches Mary talking on the phone with someone in a conspiratorial voice. 

Or maybe God just hates him. Or would, if God existed.

John knows better than to hope.

\----

Hearing Sherlock reminisce about their cases, their time together, puts John on edge. He's worried.

Worried he'll do something he'll most certainly regret. Worried that everybody can see it. Worried that Mary isn't worried. She should be worried. Because John is a strong man with stronger conviction.

But Sherlock Holmes can break him like a china doll.

\----

A month after marrying, John is living a blissful domestic life. Though he'd let himself hope, Sherlock doesn't make any attempt to contact him, and John thinks maybe it's a good thing.

But as always, John can't keep away for long, and Sherlock comes tumbling back into his life in no time at all, a ragged, pale shell of the Sherlock he saw a month ago.

He's on drugs again, obviously. Too skinny. He always forgets to eat when John doesn't force it into him. Sherlock could work for days and forget the most basic human functions. Someday, John thinks, Sherlock will collapse in the middle of some arrogant deduction and only John will know the reason why.

So maybe it's better if he's there. If John keeps him around, it'll be harder for him to end up a lifeless corpse bobbing on the waves of the Thames. 

That night, while lying beside Mary in bed, facing each other, she lifts her hand to John's cheek and pets him there, the soothing habit of a naturally maternal woman. 

In a low voice, she mumbles, "You love him."

John doesn't want to talk about it. Doesn't know why she keeps bringing it up. He's told her, he doesn't want her to bring it up. He wants every last bloody piece of that buried for the rest of his life. But, as life almost usually does, nothing works in John's favour.

So, closing his eyes against the light of the alarm clock, John rasps, "Yes."

"You want to be with him," she adds, tender as you please, and John winces.

Slowly, a little breathlessly, he answers, "Yes."

"Then why not?"

John would've thought that obvious, but then again, the things he thinks are obvious are generally nothing more than low-flying blips on the radars of Mary and Sherlock both, because they're much smarter than him, and they see things much sooner than him, and that gives them time to rationalise, a luxury that John Hamish Watson does not have.

"You're my wife," he whispers. He knows it's stupid before it even leaves his mouth.

"You married me. That doesn't mean you have to love only me," she argues, soothing pets on John's cheek all the while. "It doesn't mean you can't be with someone you loved before me. In fact, it's rather unfair, don't you think? Making you choose one or the other?" John only clenches his jaw and swallows air. "Loving me does not need to be the end of loving him. People can do that, you know. Love more than one person at a time."

"Well, I didn't marry him, did I?" He tries to point out, but Mary barrels onward.

"But you would have, wouldn't you? If he hadn't faked his death, if you hadn't met me. You would have?"

Now, his lip trembles and a tear slips from his eye, curving its way down his cheek, and in a rough tone, after he swallows once more, gasps, "Yes."

"So then why not," she re-asserts, authority clear in her words.

"Because if I lose him..." here, John pauses, staring into his wife's eyes, pleading with her to understand, and he breaks on a sob, "I can't go through that again, Mary, I can't do it again, it'll kill me this time."

Mary shushes him and pulls him toward her warm body, tucking his head beneath her chin, fingers soft in his hair. 

"It's okay now, darling," she coos. "You're alright. No need for this." She swipes at his tears upon pulling back to look him over, assess the damage. Hard to tell when you're perpetually damaged. "You really think he would do it again? After everything?"

"You think he won't?"

"I think he's smarter than that."

John paws at his cheeks with the heel of his palm and sniffles, "Yeah, well, you don't know him like I do."

"Of course not. That's why I'm right."

\----

He almost dies trying to get the upper hand on Magnussen. 

John is stuck in the waiting room with nothing but the terror bouncing his leg and soaking his eyes. He feels helpless and Mary is nowhere to be found. She's not answering her phone. John is alone.

When the doctor comes out to get him, John shoots out of his chair, scrubbing his chin and quivering under his skin.

Sherlock isn't awake when John walks in. So John kisses his forehead and smooths a hand back over his curly hair and tells him he's not allowed to die.

\----

When Sherlock doesn't die, John goes back to being cross with him.

But then, Sherlock shows him Mary's true colours, and nothing makes sense, and John's world starts to crumble. And they're back at 221B when Sherlock says it. When he finally says it out loud, with Mary right there in the room, and John's fury aimed at her.

"You chose her."

Every syllable slices into him like a scalpel.

He still hates himself.

\----

Sherlock tells Mary that she saved his life.

John thinks he's being ridiculous and sentimental.

John knows Sherlock's doing it for him. Because Sherlock loves him.

He still hates himself.

\----

Sherlock kills Magnussen. They both pretend it's because of the condescending act.

They both know it's to protect Mary. John knows it's because Sherlock doesn't want him to be alone again. Because if he loses Mary, he's not coming back to Sherlock.

John wishes he didn't know.

He still hates himself.

\----

They send Sherlock away on an aeroplane.

The two of them are left to be alone on the tarmac. 

Sherlock tells him the game is never over. John knows Sherlock is lying for the sake of his sanity. Because Sherlock knows that John losing him again will break him.

And then, Sherlock says the other thing out loud. The words from his note.

"I love you."

John cries then. He cries and cries and Sherlock holds him, and the detective is warm and solid and Sherlock kisses his temple.

"Please don't leave," John begs of him. "I ca-I can't. Please."

Sherlock apologises to him for the second time in a year. A new record. 

Then, he's gone again.

John watches the plane's ascent into the weary blue sky, his fingers interlaced with his wife's.

He still hates--

\----

The plane comes back.

He still hates himself.

\----

"Go," Mary whispers, gazing over at John. "Tell him." John stares uncomprehendingly. "How many more chances do you expect to get, my darling?" She kisses the corner of his mouth and smiles adoringly. "Go."

He does. Stumbling forward past the bumper of Mycroft's car, he makes his way across the blacktop toward the opening door of the aeroplane. Sherlock steps down onto the pavement, adjusting his cuff with one gloved hand and squinting out at his bright surroundings. John walks faster.

Finally, finally, he careens into Sherlock's arms, smashing their lips together, smearing tears all about Sherlock's face. The taller man reciprocates instantly, planting his hands on John's cheeks and tilting his head, letting his mouth open to John's tongue.

They kiss forever, for seconds. They break out of it and Sherlock's electric blues switch between John's.

"I'm sorry," John gasps.

Mary's happy as can be.

\----

Mary dies.

"You swore," John spits at Sherlock. 

John blames him.

And he still hates himself.

++++

It's what shatters the great Sherlock Holmes. Mary's death.

He got too big for his britches. And love is lost because of it. He never considered it would be him that would be the end of something so elegant, ubiquitous. Despite Sherlock's apathy, the world has always kept moving. People have always kept loving. One sociopath cannot topple a whole state of human consciousness. This time is different, though.

And John is right to blame him.

\----

He tries. He does. To see John. He's turned away. Once, then twice. So he stops trying. He knows John knows about him trying. 

John's got a new therapist. He's sure, too, that John is, right this moment, lying about whether Sherlock's tried to get in contact.

Sherlock considers alternatives to drugs.

In the end, though, he always goes back to drugs.

\----

He's shaky. He never stops shaking. He hallucinates. Almost kills himself for it.

_ Your death is something that happens to the people around you. Once your life is gone, you're not the one who's there to miss it. _

Too high. He gets too high. Nearly dead, in fact. Finds himself closer to Hell than he's ever even believed in.

Odd. It reminds him of A Beautiful Mind. That should be worrying. Why should that be worrying?

Right. It means he's gone insane. He's officially lost it. He can no longer keep up with his own brain and he's desperate to make something of himself. To be good.

He just wants to be good.

Maybe then, John can forgive him.

\----

The decision is made for him by Culverton Smith.

The decision: he is going to die for John Watson.

\----

People have tried before to make John doubt Sherlock. But none so thoroughly as Culbertson.

It works this time.

John beats him. Sherlock lets him. Sherlock wants him to. Sherlock knows he deserves it. 

And John agrees.

"I killed his wife."

"Yes, you did."

It's the worst thing that's ever been spoken into existence. A tragedy to rival Shakespeare. 

He wishes those nurses hadn't pulled John away.

He wishes John would beat him to death, even though he knows he doesn't deserve that mercy.

No better honour than to die for John Watson, at John Watson's own hands.

\----

Culverton will kill him.

Even though this is all to save John - this whole 'getting John to save him' thing - Sherlock can't help but hope for just a moment that John won't succeed. That he won't make it in time.

Can't help but hope, deep in his heart, that this really does kill him.

"I don't want to die," he says. He says it without emotion. Without meaning. "I don't want to die." Until it starts making sense. He's always been a method actor. That's why he really went to Hell, like Mary had told him to, instead of faking. But this. "I don't...want to die." 

This, he believes.

"I d-I don't..."

\----

John admits that he's not okay. He relents Sherlock did not kill Mary. 

Then John wishes him happy birthday. And tells Sherlock that it took Mary telling him to do so for him to save Sherlock.

And everything is happening at once. Because now John is confessing to the wall that he cheated on Mary. As if he's talking to her directly. And maybe he is.

Because soon he's crying.

Sherlock's body moves before he even realises it, and he's looping his arms around John's shoulders. The doctor cries into his chest, messy and red-faced. Sherlock just holds him for a long time.

When John is out of tears, Sherlock leads him to the bathroom, where John lets Sherlock undress him after turning on the hot water. The tub fills and Sherlock throws some of that stupid, lavish bubble liquid in, for privacy's sake. He helps John in with both hands in John's, gently lowers the shorter man into the waiting pool of heat.

He stands to go make tea for the both of them, but John clamps down on his wrist and a single word crackles out of his throat.

"Stay."

Sherlock does. He crouches down beside the tub and catches John's eye, questioning gaze.

"How?"

John looks at him with glittering indigo irises. Pulls him down by the back of the neck and kisses him.

For a second, Sherlock is inclined to believe he's imagining it. But then John is pushing at his robe and humming, and Sherlock is letting him, maybe encouraging it even.

It isn't until John is tugging him further in, trying to pull him into the water, that he realises John's undressed him down to his pants, and he pulls away with a gasp.

"John--"

"Please."

Sherlock knows he'd never forgive himself for taking advantage of John like that. But John's grip is strong, stronger than Sherlock's fortitude. 

One last time, he pleads with John, shaking his head.

One last time, John whispers, "Please."

And Sherlock caves, allowing John to claim his lips once more, pushing his pants off, and climbing into the clawfoot cauldron, where he seats himself on top of his companion.

In spite of his emotional carnage, John is hard, and his hips buck up to meet the touch of Sherlock's growing erection. As they grind together, finding their rhythm, John hauls Sherlock up by the waist to suck a nipple into his mouth. The detective arches his back inward, pressing his chest further into John's laving tongue, clutching John's shoulders, and the angle allows for John's length to slip back behind Sherlock's bollocks and catch on the divot of furled muscle there.

"Ah!" Sherlock gasps, grinding down again at the sensation. "John." He grabs John's forearm and guides him to slide his hand between Sherlock's cheeks.

John gets the queue. His finger traces the rim of Sherlock's entrance, teasing.

"Soap," John croaks, and Sherlock reaches over John's shoulder to the rack on the wall and snatches up the bar of clear lavender soap. Shoves it into John's waiting hand and captures his mouth again.

"Do it," Sherlock pants into John's skin, and when one finger glides into his hole, a bit of a burn following, he gasps and bends forward while rocking back onto the intrusion. "Jesus."

In no time flat, he's riding two of John's digits, addicted to the mild pain of it, to the stretch and sting and slip. He's impatient, as always, because that's just how Sherlock is, and he begs for more, though he knows it'll smart. Still, three fingers up his arse is hardly the worst he's had to take.

"I don't want to hurt you," John breathes against Sherlock's parted lips, allowing them to slot between his own in a brief kiss.

"I do," Sherlock counters before he twists back and uses his own hand to stuff John's third finger in along with the others. He grunts and hisses, but hastily shoves himself down onto the trespass. "Yes, like that."

John gives in, plays along, begins fingering Sherlock with abandon, rooting around for his prostate. And when Sherlock swears under his breath, it seems to snap something inside of John, because the doctor takes his fingers out and yanks Sherlock by the hips closer and upward so that he's hovering above John's straining appendage.

Just as Sherlock is lowering himself of his own accord, John stops him with a rough squeeze and a sweet kiss to his sternum. Sherlock whines, hole aching for it.

Softly, John turns his abyssal blue eyes heavenward to gaze into Sherlock's, and he murmurs, "Tell me you love me."

"You know I do--"

"Say it out loud," he directs, stilling Sherlock just at the head of his dick as the detective squirms to settle himself onto it. "I need to hear you say it, Sherlock."

Dipping his head to brush his lips against John's, Sherlock hooks his hands behind John's ears and mumbles, "I love you."

"Again," John pleads.

More assuredly this time, Sherlock nuzzles his nose into John's cheek, and his grazing lips assert, "I love you."

Finally, nodding, John releases his hold on Sherlock's hips and the taller man hurriedly sinks himself down onto John's cock. Then, on a shaky inhale, he rises up, and drops back down, seating himself fully in John's lap.

With a bit of prompting, they're able to devise a perfect rhythm, and as they start writhing together, pressure building, the water splashes around them and Sherlock drops his head back on his neck. John's lips immediately press into the front of his throat, spit and teeth indubitably marking him purple. Along with the consistent pressure on his throbbing arousal as the underside of his shaft drags against John's belly, Sherlock's climax is building swiftly. 

He manoeuvres his legs so they wrap around John's lower back, which shifts the angle so John's crown drives into Sherlock's p-spot, and it makes him cry out.

Suddenly, John's hand is curling around Sherlock's cock and the doctor starts fisting it in earnest. Sherlock can feel John's eyes on him, on the underside of his chin as Sherlock grips John's shoulders, thumbs bruising his collarbones, and he rides John until his vocal chords are sore from constriction into high, breathy moans.

"'M close," John growls against Sherlock's pectoral, lips drawing languidly across his skin as Sherlock bounces. "Want us to come together."

Barely have the words left John's teeth when Sherlock feels himself flutter his walls around John's prick and the strands of cum pulsing from his own tip, drowning John's hand and dripping down their stomachs.

With a wheeze, John comes, too, spilling himself inside of Sherlock and slamming up into the detective with punishing force. After he's emptied, they both collapse into each other and the acrylic spa, heaving oxygen back into their lungs.

It isn't until the faucet dribbles out a few drops of water that they move again, detaching themselves from each other. They thoroughly clean themeselves - as much as one can in now filthy bath water - and drain the tub as they towel off. 

As they slowly dress, they pause at intervals to share lingering kisses and trace their thumbs over each other's jaws, until the sun is low on the horizon and its tendons stretch to span the dusky loft, and John's mobile beeps with a message from Molly.

"Cake?" Sherlock quizzes when John tells him.

"For your birthday."

Although Sherlock rolls his eyes at the prospect of such sentiment, he knows John can clearly see the twitch of a half-smirk poking into his cheek.

And so they go for cake, fingers twined the whole time.

\----

When they return home from the island and the mystery of Sherlock's missing sibling, Mary's P.S. tape is a blessed revelation to Sherlock.

She says she knows what they will become, and John does not react the way Sherlock expects. Which is to say, Sherlock needs to rewire himself again, needs to stop expecting John to act like an unobservant citizen and start expecting John to act like John. Because no matter his first impressions, John has always been a bit of a genius in his own right. But for as smart as John is, Mary was always smarter.

Which is the exact moment when Sherlock realises that she'd known the entire time. Because John is unapologetically honest. He told her from the jump, told her all about Sherlock, so why wouldn't he have told her about this, too.

She's always known. Somehow it makes her death that much more meaningful. And that much harder.

But despite it all, Sherlock knows they'll be okay. That's how it's always been with John. Come what may, hell or high water, they have always survived.

Together.

And that's how it will always be.

[fin]

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are my life source, pls don't let me die!


End file.
